For anyone who has migrated to a place far from where they were raised, heading home is often a bittersweet experience that throws into sharp relief the passage of time. While the average Zhou relies on memory to process a visit to old friends and family who age seemingly overnight, artist Liu Xiaodong, originally from the small town of Jincheng in Liaoning, brought his pen, paintbrushes, canvases and a film crew from Taiwan headed by legendary director Hou Hsiao-Hsien to record his trip.
The result of this massive effort is Hometown Boy, an extensive series of journal entries, old photos, large scale paintings and a documentary. Taken together, they pry open one man's memories of life growing up in small town China, and recreate how it looks to a middle-aged man returning to the place of his youth.
The journal entries, handwritten in Chinese and translated into English, provide an incredibly intimate look into the artist's younger years, and his observations and adventures working in present-day Jincheng. Through his notes, the audience comes to know his friends and family, and get a grasp of what life in Jincheng is like.
The exhibit is an exercise in imagination that gradually becomes more real. Journal entries solicit viewers to create the characters of the artist's friends and family in their minds. These creations are then compared with the artist's painted portraits, then finally with the moving images in the documentary. The result is the closest one could get to accompanying Liu Xiaodong back to Jincheng without ever having actually been there.
The rhythms of small town life will ring true for those who have grown up in one, whether on this or that side of the Pacific. Liu portrays his friends with obvious affection, admiration and warmth, but he is not blind to the eccentricities often found in small town folk. From minor culture clashes with the Taiwanese film crew to the eventual destruction of the small hut where he paints by a drunk driver in a pickup, he faithfully records his trip with a fascination that audiences eventually come to share.
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